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In urban and architectural discourses, the postmodern city is typically framed as a decentered spatial patchwork that is characterized by fluidity, fragmentation and complexity. This seminar explores how such a model of urbanity resonates with late-20th- and early-21st-century literary texts. We will first discuss a number of theoretical ideas that touch upon the architectural, socio-spatial, economic, political, cultural and experiential aspects of postmodern urbanity. Then we will examine the ways in which the postmodern city is negotiated in a variety of literary texts by writers such as Thomas Pynchon, Paul Auster and Karen Tei Yamashita. In order to throw its contours into relief, we will also consider how the postmodern city novel differs from earlier literary representations of the modern metropolis.
Please purchase and read The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon(ISBN-10: 0099532611). Further texts will be made available online. |
